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Now what the hell does Abrams or Michael Bay have to do with the movie complaints?

Everything Michael Bay is a part of is terrible and everything Abrams does with a franchise is terrible.

Originally Posted by Tycho

THE STORY called for those rehashed moments from Wrath of Khan (WOK - from here on out).

I've missed you, Tycho. You always do this. You refuse to accept that there are nearly an infinite number of options in deciding what story to tell and then you accept whatever story you are given and say that it had to be that way because the story dictated it. There HAD to be midichlorians to explain Anakin's virgin birth, when there never had to be a virgin birth. There HAD to be a blockade of Naboo to show how Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor, when he could have risen to power in a hundred ways assuming they didn't just have him already be "President" or something before he became Emperor. And there didn't even have to be a planet called Naboo.

Wrath of Khan is the best thing Trek ever did and Trek has ruined itself repeatedly trying to capture that lightning in a bottle again, rather than, for example, doing something totally different like Best of Both Worlds or the Dominion War. Nemesis failed for so many reasons, the main one being it wanted to be Wrath of Khan (and no one who watched Trek all those years could claim Picard's clone or Data's prototype were a Nemesis to either of them.) The STORY of this latest film did not have to be Wrath of Khan. Why not show this new crew exploring the universe, build up some charisma between them based on their new adventures and what new and interesting thing they found out there rather than rehashing an old storyline? With CGI they could put anything they want on film, and yet there hasn't been a Star Trek movie really addressing the theme of exploration and the continuation of the human adventure since, well since Final Frontier to be fair, but I think really since The Motion Picture.

Everything is a big shoot 'em up trying to be Wrath of Khan, which itself spent much more time dealing with themes of lost youth, friendship, and obsession than it did action. Except for the Reliant's initial attack on the Enterprise and the cat and mouse in the nebula, very little of that movie is an action piece, yet the movie flies by, is filled with tension throughout, and though it is a point frequently made, Khan and Kirk are never in the same place the entire movie! All of their drama is on the viewscreen or over the communicators. You didn't need a fist fight through San Francisco. Action is fine, but nowadays it is a cover for a lack of story and there being no "there there".

Originally Posted by Tycho

The STORY was written by Orci and Kurtzman who brought you the Transformers movies and the first Trek reboot movie.

There's a ringing endorsement.

Originally Posted by Tycho

A director (unless he's also the producer) just films what's on the page.

What a total and complete misunderstanding of the director's role you have!

Originally Posted by Tycho

Perhaps a director can say "I don't want to do it this way" or re-write the scene? It would usually need approval.

Spielberg and Lucas created Indy shooting the swordsman. Kershner and Ford created "I know." I believe "I didn't kill my wife. - I don't care." came out on set of the Fugitive. Great directors aren't just in charge of camera placement, yelling action, cut, faster, and more intense.

Originally Posted by Tycho

Now George Lucas was the creator of ESB and pretty much the original writer, too. Kershner did what Lucas told him but he could consult Lucas during the filming.

It would have been a better example to talk about Lucas and Marquand's reltionship during Return of the Jedi, because if you knew about the production of Empire you couldn't be more wrong. Lucas was so unhappy with Kershner that he once proclaimed "you're ruining my movie" and tried to "save" it in editing making a terrible version.

Originally Posted by Tycho

Who knows if Orci and Kurtzman hang around for Abrams to film just in case he can go "I think they should be Ferengi and not Klingons."

I think you would be hard pressed to provide me with an example of a time where a writer had the majority of control in a movie. I hear J.K. Rowling was given quite a bit of deference on Potter. Directors are rarely hired guns and Abrams and Bay are certainly not. Once they agree to take on a project they pretty much dominate it. Abrams and Bay are not Rick McCallum. And I can totally blame Bay or Abrams for a terrible movie because even if they don't have control once hired, they could have refused to take the job. They don't need the money.

Originally Posted by Tycho

One thing I would have done is made Old Spock more passionate when it was discovered that Harrison was Khan. He has said emotion is part of a complete being's composition already and consoled young Spock of that very fact. I would have had Leonard Nimoy shout, Kahn? Kill him! Kill him now!" all enraged, emotionally. Just for the impact of that one scene where even Old Spock loses control. This would be THAT moment, right?

I find the idea that young Spock calls young Spock to ask for advice to be such a lazy way of using Nimoy and if they passed the baton in the last movie, they should have left Spock off in the sunset. Using Nimoy just reminds everyone what Quinto ain't.

And I hate the way Spock is used. Everyone says, "Spock is so logical and unemotional" except now every person who writes for Spock thinks that there should be a moment where Spock loses it and emotes all over the place in everything Spock is in. In episode after episode of the original series, Spock might have some un-Vulcan sarcasm played for humor in his comments, but he was his cool, logical self. There are examples of Spock emoting, usually when some alien force affects him in some way. But what makes the moment in Amok Time so special when he sees Kirk is alive is it was RARE. Then you have the journey as an older man in the films when he embraces his human side and realizes logic is the beginning of wisdom. It is a beautiful journey for a tortured soul, but even when we see Spock in Next Generation he doesn't weep over Sarek's death or anything. But now every movie these hack writers have Spock sing a song, try to strangle Kirk with his bare hands, or in a moment of total fan wank yell "Khan!"

Originally Posted by Tycho

I also think the actor chosen to play Khan Noonian Sing should have been of Indian-National descent, as the character was supposed to be. Young Khan without the pony tail? Maybe. But making him a British Jason Bourne? (I'm not going to say Bond because he didn't wear a tuxedo).

Yes, interesting isn't it that somehow Nero going back in time to a period after Khan was already in stasis on the Botany Bay would make him completely different in the new timeline?

And why exactly would that time travel cause yet a third look for the Klingons so they now look like Nikto?

And why exactly would that time travel cause yet a third look for the Klingons so they now look like Nikto?

That didn't really bother me because I was hoping they would take this opportunity to redesign the Klingons. I was so sick of their look from TNG/Voyager/DS9/film era. They redesigned the Klingons without any explanation whatsoever in TMP in 1979, so I'm perfectly fine with them doing it again. Of the three Klingon designs that we now have to choose from, I still think the TOS Klingons look the best and I kind of like this new design as well.

I think the real test for this movie will be when I watch it again. I was taken a bit by surprise by the blatant WOK references; but now that I'm expecting them I'm interested to know what my impression of the movie will be upon a second viewing.

There was a lot that I didn't like about the 2009 reboot film, but overall I liked the movie itself because good acting and great chemistry between the actors can compensate for A LOT when it comes to plot and storyline for me. In other words, as long as I like the characters in the film then I can overlook quite a bit.

For instance, when I see Zachary Quinto now, I just see Mr. Spock. That's how perfectly that actor has inhabited that role, IMO. Same with Chris Pine and the character of Captain Kirk. I like their interpretations of the characters, for the most part, and that's what I'm paying to see. The story is secondary to the chemistry between the actors.

I think there are two ways to look at this. You can say that Willian Shatner IS Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy IS Mr. Spock, in which case it becomes impossible to recast those characters. Or you can simply say, William Shatner is just the actor who portrays Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy is just the actor who portrays Mr. Spock. It's like saying the George C. Scott was just the actor who played General Patton, George C. Scott was NOT General Patton.

I understand there is a difference there, because Patton was a real person and Kirk, Spock, etc. are just fictional characters, but the simple reality is actors age and then they die. If you want these characters to live on long after their actors are capable of portraying them, then you need to try to separate the characters from the actors.

Since I grew up watching historical war movies, then it's easy for me to separate the actors from their roles and I think that makes me more open-minded when those roles inevitably get recast. Which will probably come in really handy when (I don't even think it's a matter of "if" anymore) Disney decides to recast Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia. Given how financially successful this Trek reboot has been, I think recasting Star Wars is almost a foregone conclusion.

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split. - Robert E. Howard

There HAD to be midichlorians to explain Anakin's virgin birth, when there never had to be a virgin birth.

I agree with your point. Alternatively, you would wonder who the heck was Anakin's father?

The Darth Plageuis novel suggests that Hego Damask (a Muun CFO of a pharmaceutical company) was able to conduct Sith experiments because of his public position. It would be great if he used his apprentice (Palpatine's) DNA to create him.

I don't know if fantasy is to your taste, but it just isn't to mine. I like some kind of explainable reason.

There HAD to be a blockade of Naboo to show how Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor, when he could have risen to power in a hundred ways assuming they didn't just have him already be "President" or something before he became Emperor. And there didn't even have to be a planet called Naboo.

True. But I like the way that Lucas did it Making Padme (the mother) part of the betrayal of everything once good in Luke's family (because they were both from Naboo and it helped with the set up of how Anakin meets Padme in the first place.

Again, it didn't have to be done that way. But I liked it and I have a right to like it.

Wrath of Khan is the best thing Trek ever did and Trek has ruined itself repeatedly trying to capture that lightning in a bottle again,

First, I think BigB made the point, it was perfect fan wank to get some of that crowd in to make sure it made money.

Next, Star Trek 4 made the most money (until First Contact, I think - those two were the leaders, but 4 certainly for TOS. But in any event, I liked Star Trek 6 because in sci-fy land, it told the story of the fall of the Soviet Empire (and the Praxis disaster mirrored Cherynobl) and Gorkin was like Gorbachev. I personally love political intrigue stories. And there was more action in TUC.

As Enterprise went on to explain things about Noonian Soong's ancestor that created the Augments (the leader of which was Khan), we got to see (on TV) what a bunch of them could really do - as we did with Cumberlandingpatch's version of Khan - just not a whole ship full of them.

With more of them, it could have become an even larger political incident, but I like the current movie with Cumberlandingpatch the way it is now. (I've seen it twice now and am really loving it).

By the way, I went with my gunfighter gang after our big Western Days shows for Saturday and one of the girls in our acting group said she'd begun watching all TOS now because of the movie (and liking the first Abrams reboot) She has now watched all 1st and 2nd seasons of Shatner's and Nimoy's Trek and is loving them (big Spock fan). She's in her 20's and you'd never expect a girl like her to decide to buy the DVD sets. She's watching the original TOS re-mastered, so I'm finally getting to see those myself (I have the original Shatner ones).
So the plan to re-interest an audience that wasn't there before is working. She's seen Space Seed but not WOK yet, as she's going to watch the movies when she finishes with TOS and the Animated (another group of shows I've never seen and look forward to watching with her).

rather than, for example, doing something totally different like Best of Both Worlds or the Dominion War.

Nemesis failed for so many reasons, the main one being it wanted to be Wrath of Khan (and no one who watched Trek all those years could claim Picard's clone or Data's prototype were a Nemesis to either of them.)

I agree, however, I liked Nemesis because of the shoot-em up scenes and the scorpion fighter, plus the Argo. I'd have liked to see the Scorpion fighters in combat though. At least we saw the Argo dune buggy fight the aliens' dune buggies.

I know what Star Trek stands for and I embrace that. But I also have a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of bloodlust and dig action and violence. Though it's best when paired with great purpose - like when Spock beats the living -$%#! out of Khan at the end. Dang I love that scene. Vulcan vs. Human Augment. Perfect combat. It's hard to compare a physical fight like this since Worf cut off Duras' head on TNG. (Actually, Worf and Gowron went at it pretty good - and when he was a prisoner and fought the Jem Hadar - see DS9 winds up having the great fights and Gul Dukat, the best villain of all Star Trek IMO - but his fights weren't that awesome. He was more of a plotting conspiracy leader).

The STORY of this latest film did not have to be Wrath of Khan. Why not show this new crew exploring the universe,

The exploring part would not necessarily sell to the mass audience. I don't think my friend would have gotten in Trek the way she has from "exploring movies." The only TRUE exploring Trek movies were TMP, TFF, Generations. None of which are anyone's favorites.

The shows were great for Exploring. And as a matter of fact, so were (after TOS) Voyager and Enterprise. (DS9 did some beyond the wormhole before the war started, but most people remember the show for the war).

Now I think there are great uses for action, as we already discussed, but I really like the way you described why WOK works. And it is one of my favorite movies for sure. You're right about the tension, the cat and mouse game, and all that good stuff.

There was a lot of fan demand for Khan's return. As if Trek was rebooted - the crew might experience what TOS did in many ways.

Did you catch the reference to "THE MUDD INCIDENT." That's where they got that ship they flew to the Klingon Homeworld (Kronos). It had been Harry Mudd's! And McCoy said he delivered Gorn babies (Arena - episode).

I think the audience might want to see things like The Tholian Web for the fan wankers (Enterprise covered that pretty well actually). And stuff from other famous episodes like The Enterprise Incident (with the Romulans) could be expected to be -re-covered too. Finally, TNG did that - instead of Kirk being disguised as a Romulan, Deanna Troi was.

Oh - speaking of TNG - did anyone notice that the first body that the crew found frozen and moved from a torpedo was DATA?! Look again. It's not Data, but Data is made in the image of Soong - so they used a Data head (not Brent Spiner making an appearance of anything) and let it be viewed in the cryotube. Dr Soong' ancestor created the Augments before his descendent created the Data androids.

But they could retcon it to say that Khan's people could have had Lore or something like B4 along with them and it left the Augments to go off on its own.

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I agree with your point. Alternatively, you would wonder who the heck was Anakin's father?

Anakin's father never needed to be a part of the story. If I had written the prequels, Anakin would have been a moisture farmer on Tatooine and I would probably have never mentioned Anakin's parents. Maybe they died working a hard life on Tatooine. Maybe they were killed as civilian casualties in the Clone Wars. It really made no difference to the story the prequels needed to tell.

Get back to different levels of Force sensitivity in each person, nurtured by faith in yourself and the Force's Power instead of everything being determined by genetics and blood tests.

Originally Posted by Tycho

The Darth Plageuis novel suggests that Hego Damask (a Muun CFO of a pharmaceutical company) was able to conduct Sith experiments because of his public position. It would be great if he used his apprentice (Palpatine's) DNA to create him.

That level of detail was never needed in Star Wars, and is part of why the prequels failed. We didn't need to know how Tarkin and Vader knew each other, for how long, or what their relationship really was. It did not matter. They were bad guy and other bad guy for bad guy to talk to and that was all they needed to be.

I always thought one of the differences between the prequels and original trilogy was it took 20 minutes in the Phantom Menace to set up the pod race and in Jedi they just jumped on the speeder bikes and off they went. Luke and Leia did't have to build their speeder bikes before they could ride them.

Originally Posted by Tycho

Again, it didn't have to be done that way. But I liked it and I have a right to like it.

That's certainly true and I'm glad you like as many movies as you do! I've often envied your ability to admire so many things that I think are fundamentally terrible.

Originally Posted by Tycho

Next, Star Trek 4 made the most money (until First Contact, I think - those two were the leaders, but 4 certainly for TOS.

When I said Wrath of Khan was the best thing Star Trek ever did I certainly wasn't taking into consideration or caring at all how much money it made!

Originally Posted by Tycho

As Enterprise went on to explain things about Noonian Soong's ancestor that created the Augments (the leader of which was Khan)...

Goodness, Enterprise was a mess! The entire premise - to boldy go where we've already been - was such a mistake.

Originally Posted by Tycho

So the plan to re-interest an audience that wasn't there before is working. She's seen Space Seed but not WOK yet, as she's going to watch the movies when she finishes with TOS and the Animated (another group of shows I've never seen and look forward to watching with her).

That may be a happy side effect for the corporations, but it's pretty clear Abrams wanted to wipe out old Star Trek and its merchandising off the map.

Originally Posted by Tycho

There was a lot of fan demand for Khan's return. As if Trek was rebooted - the crew might experience what TOS did in many ways.

I am so sick of do-overs instead of fresh ideas. Superman Returns was a mess because it couldn't stop trying to redo Superman the Movie. Now Man of Steel is doing Zod even though the public only knows him through Superman II and he really isn't all that necessary to a great Superman story. That was what was great about Batman Begins. They told a great story, and used Scarecrow instead of the same old thing. Origin story. Zod. Joker. Khan. Reboot. Origin story. Zod. Joker. Khan. Reboot and repeat.

Originally Posted by Tycho

Oh - speaking of TNG - did anyone notice that the first body that the crew found frozen and moved from a torpedo was DATA?! Look again. It's not Data, but Data is made in the image of Soong - so they used a Data head (not Brent Spiner making an appearance of anything) and let it be viewed in the cryotube. Dr Soong' ancestor created the Augments before his descendent created the Data androids.

Soong linked to Khan. Another Enterprise fiasco. By the way, the thing that drove me the most crazy about Nemesis, not ONE reference to Lore. "Hey remember the last time we put together an android that looked like Data and it was a disaster? Nah, me neither."

It's like the Rebels learned the Empire wanted to build the 2nd Death Star, and they just said - "Well we'll let them have this one because it's further away from us."

But that was Brent Spiner, who helped with the writing on Nemesis. He wanted to reboot Data's character because he said he wasn't acting a part if Data became too human with the emotion chip. It defeated the point of the character.

For that part, I agree with what Brent said, but if TNG had more movies, they could have explored more about how Data processed emotions, too. But Generations was a lot about that and in First Contact and Insurrection, they went with that too and it made for some good moments IMO.

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The Generations cast movies were such a mess. Though McCoy was in Encounter at Farpoint, TNG never needed the original cast to be its own thing. I think the Scotty episode was a mistake and that only the Spock and Sarek episodes were worth bringing anyone from the original Star Trek forward. With the exception of the Naked Now so few TNG episodes were rehashes of the original series. So after such a wonderful send off as All Good Things, it is such a shame that the studio felt the need to shoehorn Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov into TNG, when it should have just been a movie about TNG. Then, you wouldn't have needed the entire plot about the happiness time ribbon. There were great stories they could have told. It would have been far better to have had the Federation go to war with the Romulans, finally see some battles between federation ships and Romulan warbirds. You could have had Denise Crosby playing Tasha's daughter and if you wanted an old crew connection have Spock on Romulus trying to broker a peace.

There were so many stories they could have told after letting Kirk ride into the distance as he did in the Undiscovered Country.

Then, I know people love First Contact, you have a watered down Borg, and a made up Queen, standing in such stark contrast to how great the Best of Both Worlds was.

Insurrection is actually my favorite of TNG movies because it is just a long episode of the show. They even dump Data's memory chip for the bad idea it was. Of course, it really bothers me they don't discuss how different Picard's position is than in the episode with the Native Americans from TNG.

And I could spend hours saying how terrible Nemesis was.

It just bothers me the first movie is dealing with the old cast, the second the Borg, the third a retread of an episode from the show without mentioning it, and the fourth dark, depressing, with made up Nemesis characters for Data and Picard who were nothing of the sort.

There could have been at least one TNG movie where they confronted something new and interesting "out there" in the universe whether it was hostile or not. In TPM and The Voyage Home, the thing comes to Earth. Of ten Star Trek movies, ONLY The Final Frontier of all movies really has the crew find something new and interesting in an unexplored part of the universe. And that is sad.

I checked out the novelization of the film at the library, then decided to get the DVD from there, too. Once I finish reading the book, I'll add some comments here (see if it's better/worse, has extra insights, is verbatim the same, etc.). But in short; I liked the film, aside from some minor issues.

[edit] ... and, I am glad I saw the film first. It allowed me to be surprised at how the visuals and plot would unfold, which I then waited to read about after.

Best movie parts? The role reversals of Kirk & Spock, recognizing the Getty Museum as the locale for Starfleet walking areas, Scotty's alien buddy stealing scenes without saying ONE single word, the tribble, as other mentioned the great crew chemistry.

Best book parts? Getting into the heads of characters (always a strength of books) like Uhura's issues with Spock's "death" in the volcano, the end scene with Kahn back in the cryo tube, some background on one of the "redshirts" joining the shuttle team.